1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spooling method for sequentially printing a plurality of documents in which a server spools print data supplied from another information processing system (hereinafter called a xe2x80x9cclientxe2x80x9d) on the same network.
2. Related Background Art
A spooler of a server spools print data to a printer by entering the print data from clients in a queue in the order of reception and outputting the print data in this order to the printer.
A plurality of documents to be printed are supplied to a server as one job of print data of these documents. Therefore, with a conventional spooling method, it happens that while a client continuously sends print data, print data from another client is mixed and enters in the queue of a spooler. In this case, a printer outputs mixed documents from a plurality of clients so that a user is required to manually separate the documents for each client. If the printer is locked so as to be occupied by only one client and not to receive a print request from other clients, sequential print by one client is possible but other clients cannot print out.
The invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances. It is an object of the present invention to provide a spooling method for sequentially outputting print data supplied from an information processing system to a printer, which system issued a sequential print declaration.
In order to achieve the above object, an output control apparatus of this invention is structured in the following manner.
The output control apparatus for receiving data of each job unit input from a data source and outputting from an output unit output data of the job unit in accordance with a predetermined order, has setting means for setting an order of outputting data and control means for outputting from the output unit the output data of the job unit on the basis of the input data received from the data source, in accordance with the output order set by the setting means.
Other objects and features of this invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the embodiments when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.